From WTP Vol. VI #8

Triangulation
By Bob Meszaros

Here, where the ice withdrew
and the rock spine rose then slowly
buckled over time, while the seashells rattle
and the white surf beats old boulders into silt,
gently, with his fingertips, he traces and retraces
letters, numbers, and the triangle inscribed on a bronze
disk embedded in old stone, where the surveyor’s
plumb bob found its mark in nineteen hundred
thirty-five and its circling stopped.

Here, between hospital and home,
between radiation and tumor, centered
on the tip of this triangle, he sits spread-eagle
from three to four o’clock each Tuesday afternoon,
his fingers tracing and retracing, tracing
and retracing, until the spinning stops.

Bob Meszaros taught English at Hamden High School in Hamden, Connecticut, for thirty-two years. He retired from high school teaching in June of 1999. During the ‘70s and ‘80s his poems appeared in a number of literary journals, such as En Passant and Voices International. In 2000 he began teaching part-time at Quinnipiac University, and once again began to submit his work for publication. His poems have subsequently appeared in The Connecticut Review, Main Street Rag, Red Wheelbarrow, Tar River Poetry, Concho River Review, and many other literary journals.